A senior who played on Appalachian State University's first two national championship football teams recently returned from a mission trip to Darfur -- a trip that has given him a slightly different perspective than the rest of his team.

Billy Riddle hits and grunts with his teammates while he plays the dangerous game of football. But last season he was a on a completely different team facing a very different type of danger as a missionary in Sudan.

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The violence in Darfur, where genocide has killed millions and made millions more refugees, has come to the forefront on the world stage.

Riddle, who didn't play on the team's third straight national championship team, recalled the danger his team of missionaries faced.

"There was a time when the UN locked us down in our base," he said. "I was in a smaller base. It was me and one other American guy and a couple Sudanese people living in this village and we were locked down because of a rebel, the Lords Resistance Army group out of Uganda. We had to stay in our base for two weeks 'cause it wasn't safe to go out."

Riddle, who was in the country for seven month and came down with malaria twice, helped townspeople get food and rebuild churches. He said that everywhere he looked he saw brutal conditions and overwhelming poverty, but also something surprising -- smiles on Sudanese faces.

"It's a life-changing experience to go to a place that has absolutely nothing and see happy people. Here in America we have too much stuff and we strive to get more and more and we are still not happy," he said. "You go to a place where they have nothing but friends and family and there are happy because of love friendships and family."

Appalachian Coach Jerry Moore said he fully supported Riddle's decision to leave the high profile life of a champion athlete for a tough existence in the Sudan.

"He was sitting right there in that corner and I just asked him to tell our team what he was going to do. And he did. And you could have heard a pin drop in here," Moore remembered of the exchange during a team meeting.

Riddle said he's excited to play one more season with the Mountaineers, but his primary job isn't to run fast or tackle hard.

"I didn't come back to play the game of football," he said. "I came back to be with these guys; to be with my team; to be with App; to be an inspiration. To say that there are more things important than football."